A typical communications network includes many different types of network devices. For example, a typical communications network may include host devices, which act as the source or destination of a particular flow of traffic, routers and/or switches, which act to forward traffic flows toward their appropriate destinations, and security devices, which provide, for example, firewall or other security functionality. These different types of network devices may be interconnected via links.
When a link or path in the communications network fails, it is important that re-routing around the failed link or path occurs as quickly as possible so that the loss of traffic is minimized. When the network devices are communicating via Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) using Circuit Cross-Connect technology, the network devices are notified of a failure of a link or path via layer 2 signaling, which may take up to 10 seconds for the appropriate network devices to become aware of the failure and begin re-routing traffic. When network devices are notified of a failure of a link or path via layer 3 signaling, it may take up to a minute for the appropriate network devices to become aware of the failure.